New Ecumenical Consensus Tracks Edwards Fight Against Poverty By: Mark W Adams

Senator John Edwards official announcement of his presidential candidacy with New Orleans as a backdrop was intended to emphasize the core theme of his character and campaign -- a fight against poverty in America.

Indeed, he consistently returns to the idea of creating "One America" to end poverty in our time. We have heard this since the 2004 primaries. It is a cause he has clearly staked out for his own. This is his issue.

Now, despite the best efforts of a radical, right-wing smear to brand this clearly religious man as anti-Catholic or even anti-Christian, Edwards can find common cause with the Christian Churches Together (CCT) who announced the consensus of 36 churches and national organizations on the "importance of evangelism and the need to eliminate domestic poverty."

You can get their entire Statement on Poverty here. Clearly the Edwards campaign should find friends within this organization.

This is a gift, literally, from above folks. CCT spans the universe of American Christian churches -- yes, even Catholics. They've taken five years to reach a ecumenically agreeable mission statement emphasizing the importance of spreading Christ's message and which calls poverty in the US a "scandal."

That's it, they undoubtedly will have much more to say, but after five years of discussion, they felt that these two themes were universal to their beliefs and important enough to launch their organization.

Dr. William Shaw of the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc., declared that poverty in the United States to be a "scandal."

Poverty "will not be redressed without intentional and painful effort by the total U.S. community," Shaw said. "CCT calls the country's conscience to that effort and commits itself to being a part of that redressing."

Got that? Now do we all agree what a real scandal is? There is a biblical imperative to overcome poverty.

And they're calling out every presidential candidate to make the fight against poverty a priority. Jim Wallis reports on their agenda.

The next meeting of the church leaders will be in January of 2008, in Washington, D.C., in the heat of a presidential election campaign. In the nation's capitol, the church leaders from across America's theological and political spectrum hope to both re-commit themselves to the mission of eliminating the "scandal" of U.S. domestic poverty and to call upon the candidates from both parties to put poverty near the very top of the nation's political agenda. That, my friends, is a big deal.

For John Edwards, this could be huge. He's been answering this challenge with his words and deeds right along. It is the theme underscoring everything he stands for.

Edwards, August 29, 2006:
The number of Americans living in poverty remains unchanged at 37 million. A year ago, the President said we have a duty to confront poverty with bold action, and then he turned a blind eye once again. If the President won't act, I hope the American people will - talk to your church or synagogue or mosque, contact a local charity, anything you can do will make a difference."

For years, liberal and progressive commentators in and out of cyberspace have been calling on ways for Democrats to reach out to the religious. I think they just reached out to John Edwards.

This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

powered by performancing firefox